CULTURAL CHRISTIANITY

I write these words a short time after watching "The Nativity Story" with my
family and find that I am somewhat discouraged. One of the premier Christian
movie review websites (ChristianAnswers.Net) hosts numerous reviews raving
about the Biblical accuracy and attention to detail that was evident within
the film. Personally, I found the attention to detail to be less than
satisfying and the Biblical accuracy to be essentially non-existent. I am
discouraged because the reviews on this Christian website seemed to accept
"The Nativity Story" more for what it wasn't than for what it was. It wasn't
the typical Hollywood shoot-em-up cuss-em-out movie and that seems to be
what has impressed people the most. To my mind far too many liberties were
taken with the story of Jesus' birth (necessary to stretch several
paragraphs of Biblical text into 90 minutes of movie) and far too many
incidents occurred of non-Christian behaviour being given tacit approval.
(After the movie had completed eleven months of filming the woman playing
Mary revealed that she was pregnant by her boyfriend. I do not presume to
judge such behaviour but it indicates a strange state of Christianity that
the woman playing the part of one of the most revered women in history could
become pregnant while playing that part and that no one seems to be
disturbed by it. A similar statement could be made about the movie "The End
of the Spear" in which actor portraying both Nate Saint and his son Steve
Saint is a prominent homo-sexual rights activist.) My discouragement seems
to stem from the fact that movies such as "The Nativity Story," "The Passion
of Christ" or "The End of the Spear" seem to find far more favourable an
audience than truly significant movies such as "The Miracle Maker" or "The
Gospel of John."

I've been wondering why a Christian audience would accept mediocrity that
does little or nothing to advance the gospel of salvation. Conversations
that I have had with other Christians reveal that a disturbing number of us
seem to have a Christianity that is comforting rather than challenging.